Twisted Purification – Short Story by Prakriti Kajaria

I stood alone in the kitchen, the smell of half-cooked food hanging in the air. I heard my husband’s impatient voice from the dining table. “Hurry up, Ira! Can’t you do anything right? You’re as useless as ever!”

His hurtful words stung like a swarm of wasps in my ears but I know he loves me. He sometimes gets upset because he wants every work done on time. Despite my efforts to finish all the chores on time, his definition of “on time” keeps changing according to him.

I went to serve the food I prepared for him. He sat there checking his phone in his well-fitted light blue formal shirt, paired with neatly pressed trousers and polished black shoes. I served him his favorite dishes. He was still using his phone.

“You’ll be late for work. It’s winter and the food will get cold if you don’t eat it now”, I said.

He glared and being pissed said, “I know it’s winter and when my work at the bank starts. You don’t have to remind me of that. It will be better if you focus on your work. I don’t see any improvement in the work you do at home”. I stayed silent. I didn’t want him to go to work in a bad mood. He left and I got involved in other household work.

People were talking loudly while I was walking through the crowded market streets to get vegetables for dinner. I overheard a hushed conversation about the cleaning power of dishwasher soaps and how they can remove all the dirt and make things look clean. I didn’t only buy the vegetables but the dishwasher soap too.

The next day I tried to make his favourite dish a bit before breakfast time. Enough to keep the food from getting cold before he eats. Vikrant came in his usual bank clerk’s clothes. “Should I bring you breakfast?” I asked excitedly.

While wearing shoes he replied, “I will not have breakfast at home today. I am having it with my colleagues”. The disappointment was visible in my voice as I answered, “But I have already made breakfast. You should have told me earlier.”

“So what? All women make breakfast.” He replied, irritated. “You’re not even a real woman; you can’t even bear a child,” Vikrant uttered his usual hurtful words.

I felt my chest tighten, a familiar pain jagged at my heart. We had once been in love with each other or maybe it was just me who thought that. But that love soon transformed into a withered memory. I could no longer bear the cruelty in his words. I decided to take matters into my own hands.

My mother once told me people who hurt others are dirty from the inside. Saying hurtful things pollutes one’s soul and one becomes a bad person. I wish she was still alive to guide me. My mother’s words echoed in my mind the whole afternoon.

While doing house chores I recalled the overheard conversation about how dishwasher soaps clean all the dirt. The idea took root in my mind. Both the concepts merged in my mind and gave me a solution. I was delighted as though I had found water in the desert.

Each sprinkle was a desperate attempt, with determination, to purify him and to release him from the grip of his malice. I started adding tiny amounts of dishwasher soap to his meals.

At first, I feared the taste of meals might change. So to be sure I tasted it before serving it to him. A little bit didn’t make much difference to the taste. I wanted to clean the dirt that was inside him. The dirt that makes him say those cruel words. I will make his soul pure by cleaning that dirt.

As days passed, I observed him consume his daily meals, unaware of my pure intentions. We have very few conversations nowadays. The only thing we talked about was when something needed to be bought for the house. His demeanour slightly shifted which convinced me to continue.  

I was cleaning the store room when I heard his angry voice from the bedroom. “Can’t you do anything without creating a problem for me?” he shouted as I entered the bedroom. He seemed furious and I knew I had messed up something very bad.

He stormed towards me with fury. The world seemed to slow, and I could see hatred in his eyes. His hand struck me with a sharp intensity. I winced, my cheek pulsating with pain and my heart burdened by the emotional bruises of our love.

“You threw my office papers with the old newspapers. How can you be so dumb that you didn’t notice that?” he shouted. “You just sit at home all day and do nothing. For once at least be useful for something. Marrying you was the biggest mistake I have made in my whole life.”

His words sharper than the knife cut my heart into millions of little pieces. With tears in my eyes, I said “I have kept your papers under the TV drawers. I found them between the old newspapers when I was putting them in a bag to discard them.”

“Then why did you waste my time? You could have said this before. Oh my god, get away from my eyes.” He replied while going out of the room. He was right. I could have said that before if I was smart enough to know that he must be looking for his papers.

I wanted to upgrade my plans after what happened a few nights back. He again said hurtful words and it was not the only time he slapped me. Those things have happened before.

I decided to use different cleaning agents to clean the dirt inside his soul. I started to use washing soaps, bathing soaps, and sometimes a little bit of bleach, while I continued to use my previous dishwasher soaps and liquids. Balancing the taste was a big task but I soon figured that out.

Sometimes he skipped his meals by eating out. That worried me as it might delay my plan to make him pure. I convinced him to at least eat breakfast at home, as starting the day with homemade food is healthy. He turned his face towards me. I think he found my words suspicious. But then he smiled and agreed. His smile warmed the cold my soul was feeling. I know he loves me. He just sometimes gets upset because of me and says hurtful things. I felt relieved as my plan was working. He smiled at me after a long time and it made me happy.

As weeks passed, his cruel words were still there but less frequent. He didn’t raise his hand again. A growing sense of quiet defeat replaced his outbursts. His coughing became frequent. He felt a change within himself, a weakening he can’t explain.

Silently, I watched my plan unfold, a sense of satisfaction creeping into me. I believed I was saving him, cleaning the dirt that stained his soul.

Soon he started to get sick often. He believed he wasn’t sick enough to see a doctor. He started taking tonsillitis medicines on his own by asking the chemist. His actions and words became soft as his condition worsened. His soul was changing from imperfect, dirty, and corrupted, to clean, pure, and perfect. I felt a sense of weird relief wash over me. I was convinced that I was merely an instrument of fate.

On a fateful night, Vikrant’s health deteriorated. He clutched his stomach in distress. I watched him struggling to breathe. I knew he was getting clean from the inside. I should have been worried seeing him in agony. Instead, I felt elated with triumph and detached from his pain.

Vikrant’s eyes met mine, his face grimacing with pain and betrayal. But he doesn’t understand he was getting cleaned from inside. His soul is getting pure and that will bring the love back into our lives.

The realization struck me like a bolt of lightning as I stood beside his lifeless body. Overwhelming numbness enveloped me. “I don’t feel bad, I feel peace. He’s cleaned from the dirt inside him” I repeated, calming the unease in me, my voice echoing through the darkness.

The town remained oblivious to the incident. No one would know the darkness that has taken residence in my heart. They will never understand my good intentions. The truth remained concealed within the deepest corners of my soul. Living in solitude, I felt my soul had become impure in the process of making him pure.

I continued my actions of making the soul clean. This time I was doing it for mine. I kept consuming the same food as him to make myself pure. Before, I used to eat less to keep my body in shape for him. Now he is not here. My soul found solace in the shadows of redemption. In the end, it was not just Vikrant whose soul got pure, but mine as well.